Congress of Industrial Organizations

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a labor federation in the United States that existed from 9 November 1936 to 4 December 1955. The CIO was founded as a faction within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) that sought to encourage the AFL to organize workers in mass production industries, but all 10 CIO unions were expelled from the AFL on 10 September 1936. The CIO supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal programs, and it was also open to African-American members. In 1947, the CIO opposed the Taft-Hartley Act, which would have forced the leaders of the union to swear that they were not communists; they saw the act as unconstitutional. In 1955, the CIO rejoined the AFL to form the AFL-CIO labor federation.